Scenes From the Last Safe Place
by Phoebonica
Summary: Lemony meets his sister at the Hotel. It's been a long time. Needless to say, this contains spoilers. Don't read it unless you've read The Penultimate Peril, because it won't make any sense.


Disclaimer: If Daniel Handler _is_ secretly posting fanfiction for his own works here, he's not calling himself Phoebonica. I'm just your average fangirl who doesn't own any of this.   
Scenes From the Last Safe Place 

Gradually, the ripples faded away.

As the shattered reflection restored itself, Lemony noticed something that hadn't been there in the moment before he threw the pebble. Or rather some_one_, a very familiar someone with her long, thick hair piled up every which way on top of her head and secured with pencils, someone who was walking down the garden towards him and giving him a small upside down wave. He looked up from the pond at his sister and waved back, calling her name, and she smiled and broke into a run. For a moment he felt dizzy, almost light-hearted with relief that she had made it here after all. He hadn't admitted to himself until then just how worried he'd been that she wouldn't show up.

He started round to her side of the pond, wondering what to say to her – how did you greet someone who'd thought you were dead? – but as it turned out Kit didn't spare any time for words. She flung her arms around him in a breathless hug that would have half suffocated him, had he not been gripping her back just as tightly. A few tears escaped him even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't cry in front of her, wouldn't stain their reunion with misery, but when she pulled back he noticed redness around her eyes and realised his own shoulder was damp. Kit looked at him and frowned slightly, as if seeing something she didn't approve of.

"What's the matter?" Lemony asked.

She shook her head. "Oh, nothing really. You just look… so much older. I mean, it's been a long time."

She was right, Lemony realised, looking down at his reflection. Strange, how he'd been staring into this pond for hours before Kit came and hadn't seen how worn and tired his face was becoming, the dark rings around his eyes that made it clear he hadn't slept well in some time. He gave a deep sigh. "I do, don't I?"

"We're all getting older." She took his hand. "We'd better get inside, it's not safe to stand around out here. I'm sorry I couldn't explain things better in my telegrams," she continued, leading him round the pond and through the ashes and charred wreckage that still littered the ground here, "but I couldn't be sure they weren't being intercepted. You must be dreadfully confused. Ah, here we are." She lifted a trapdoor that Lemony despite his observational skills would have sworn was just another patch of ground, and gestured for him to enter. "It's a remarkable place. I think you'll like it."

The steps were dark and narrow, and quite steep. Lemony began to make his way down, one step at a time, Kit following just behind him. She closed the trapdoor, and there was an unnerving second of total blackness before the lights automatically came on. The walls were painted dark green, as was the floor, and there were silver handrails on either side of the staircase. It was a long way down.

"How are the children?" Lemony asked as they continued walking, trying to make his tone sound natural, as though they were meeting after weeks instead of years.

"Safe," Kit responded quickly. "They – they're safe. They're fine. Last time I saw them."

Lemony paused, turned to face her, a difficult manoeuvre in the cramped passageway. "Kit, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, keep going." She gave a strained smile. "They've been asking about you, you know. You're famous. You'll have to meet them some day. When all this is over…" She paused, as if about to say something more, but shook her head. "Keep going, we're almost there."

They were. A few more steps led them to a green door with silver numbers painted on it, reading 020. Lemony paused and glanced back at Kit, who made a pushing gesture with her hand. _Go on_. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door.

He gasped in astonishment. The room itself was not especially remarkable, though the bookshelves were well stocked and the chairs looked comfortable. It was what was painted on the far wall that caused him to gasp – a gigantic map of the sub-sub-library, a catalogue of the catalogue, stretched from floor to ceiling, laying out the contents of each level and each room with meticulous precision. "The _scale_ of it…" Lemony breathed, stepping closer to examine the map in greater detail, running a hand gently over the wall as though it were fragile. "The detail… this is incredible…"

"And as you can see, no ugly curtains. In fact," Kit said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her with a faint click, "no curtains at all."

There was a catch in her voice as she said the last word, and Lemony turned quickly from his rapt examination of the wall. Kit was leaning against the doorframe, one hand across her face, silent, but shaking with grief. He ran back to her, mentally cursing his insensitivity – he of all people should have known this was coming. She held her arms out as he approached, and he gathered her to him.

"I'm sorry…" She tried to pull away, dry her eyes and stand up straight, but he pulled her closer. "I just… I haven't been here since – since what happened. I just - walked in, and there's the map, and there's his chair right in the corner and I keep thinking he ought to be sitting there and any minute now he could just walk in and… and…" Her voice broke down into a wail.

"I know," Lemony murmured, stroking her hair gently as she wept. "I understand, really I do, it's all right."

"I just feel so…" She shook her head, wordless.

"Disoriented?" Lemony suggested. "As if you were on stage, and none of the cues were right. They rewrote the script, and no one told you."

"That's it, exactly." Kit looked up at him with a sad smile. "You've still got your way with words, baby brother."

"It's a double edged sword," he told her. "But I know. I know what you're going through."

"Speaking of which…" She took a deep breath and stepped back, rearranging the hair that had fallen out of place. Lemony knew this gesture well, a signal that personal crises were on hold, that Kit was turning her attention to more professional matters. He'd often envied her resolve. "Room 641 contains tea making facilities, which I think we should avail ourselves of before we start work. It's going to be a long day. Does that sound all right to you?"

"You don't want to – stay here, talk? Because I'd gladly…"

"Lemony, I'm okay. I was just overwhelmed there for a moment, that's all. I can manage tea." She wiped her eyes with the back of a white-gloved hand, and headed for a door on the far side of the room. "Come on, I'll give you the tour."

The kitchen, of course, was several floors down. They passed through endless corridors lined with numbered doors, Kit occasionally pausing to point out rooms of particular importance or interest. She seemed entirely calm, but Lemony couldn't help noticing the tension in the way she held her arms, the forced casualness in her voice. But if Kit didn't want to talk, there was no point in upsetting her further by pressing the issue. Let her have her façade, if that was what she wanted right now.

The extent of the library was even more incredible than he'd expected from the map, every room they passed filled from floor to ceiling with books both printed and handwritten, typed notes sorted neatly into binders and artefacts carefully preserved under glass or sealed in concrete. Each room left him more and more awestruck, mingled with a faint sense of unease that he couldn't quite pinpoint. It could have been the contrast between this vast collection of knowledge and Lemony's own efforts at research gathering, which seemed pitifully small here. Of course, he reminded himself, this was the combined work of thousands of volunteers, on every topic imaginable, and he was only one man, working in a very specialised area. The Fate Of The Baudelaire Orphans, cross-referenced with Beatrice, the Woman I Loved, Untimely Death Of…

"Lemony?" Kit's voice came from a distance. The corridor blurred and shimmered, and he closed his eyes to regain some balance and felt hot trails of water run down his face. He sensed Kit coming closer, felt her hand on his.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." This wasn't the time. This place wasn't part of his own sorry history. Kit was the one who belonged here, he didn't have to drag his own grief into things along with hers.

"Lemony. Tell me."

"It's nothing, it's stupid. I…" He took a deep breath, holding back the tears. "I just wondered what she would have thought of this, that everything we learned ended up here. How impressed she would have been. An achievement like this, when she thought we couldn't… I'm sorry…"

"Don't be." She put an arm round him. "That's not stupid at all."

"I shouldn't be making this all about me. You've lost more here than I have, and you're coping with it - "

Kit sighed, cutting him off. "You know, what I said back there was a complete lie. I'm not okay. Just because I hide it better doesn't mean it's gone away." He tried to reply, but she raised a hand to stop him. "I'm still distraught over what happened to Dewey, and I probably always will be because it was cruel and unfair and wrong. And you're still distraught over what happened to Beatrice. It's hard and it's painful and it never gets any easier. You're just more honest about it than I am."

"I just don't want to be an emotional wreck all weekend." He turned to her, brushing away tears. "Kit, I'm so glad you're here. I thought I was never going to see you again. You don't know how alone I've felt these past few years."

Kit pulled him closer, kissing him softly on the cheek. "Yes," she whispered. "I do." She stepped back, still holding his hand, and tilted her head in the direction of the next staircase, raising an eyebrow in enquiry. Lemony nodded, and they set off again, still gripping each other's hand like survivors of a car crash.

The kitchen, when they reached it, was small and fairly basic. Dewey had taken into account the possibility that volunteers might be trapped in the library for a long time, and so most of the supplies there had long expiration dates and were still perfectly usable, although there were some rather unpleasant things lurking in the fridge which Kit began to clear out, grimacing. Lemony took the tea making duty, glad of an activity that demanded concentration. Being with Kit made him feel safer than he had in a very long time, but he still felt that inexplicable sense of unease as he looked around the slightly cramped room. He watched the water start to bubble and wondered why the sound should seem so ominous, and why the clouds of steam that gathered as it boiled began to make him think of flames.

"So what do you need to know?" Kit asked. They'd moved into the room next door (642 – Meals and Table Service) and were sitting side by side at one of the polished wooden tables. Bookshelves lined the walls of this room too. There were bookshelves everywhere.

"Everything." Lemony took a sip of his tea. "Mainly I need to know what happened while the Baudelaires were here, but there's so much about the whole story that I haven't figured out. I've found more than I ever expected through my own research, but a lot of things I thought were lost forever."

"Well, we can't go through _everything_," Kit said, pulling a commonplace book from her pocket and flicking through it to a scribbled list of numbers, "but if we started in the 340s, that would have most of the details of the trial – I mean, not what actually happened on the day, because there wasn't anyone to… but the background to it, the preparations went on for months. And then the running of the hotel itself – actually, maybe we should start there, because…" She continued talking, but Lemony wasn't listening. He'd just realised what it was that bothered him about Kit's enthusiasm, about his own awestruck reaction to the Hotel Denouement and all its secrets. The teacup rattled in his hand as he set it down.

"Kit?" His voice was low and hoarse, and when she turned to him he found he couldn't look at her. He stared down at his reflection in the polished veneer, eyes wide with shocked realisation.

"What is it?"

"This is… a wonderful place. It's our last safe place, the sum of all our accomplishments. Everything we ever worked towards, everything any of us achieved, it's all in here. This is what VFD is all about. This is everything we stood for." He swallowed. The next six words were almost inaudible. "And I'm going to destroy it."

Her hand was on his arm, her voice high and unnerved. "Lemony, what are you _talking_ about?"

He answered slowly. One word at a time. "If I'm to tell this story truthfully… then I have to tell everything. And this place is a part of it. I have to tell it fairly, tell the whole truth, but if I do that it won't be safe any more. I can't keep it secret, Kit." His hands trembled as he spoke. "I can't keep it hidden."

There was a long pause. All Lemony could hear was the sound of his own breath, harsh and rapid as he stared down at the table. He didn't dare to look at Kit, couldn't stand to see the realisation on her face, the disappointment. Couldn't look at her, until she finally spoke.

"Good."

"W-_what_?" He turned and gaped at her. She stared straight ahead, shoulders back, face set, determined. Her voice was entirely steady.

"It was never meant to be hidden," she said. "It was never meant to be a secret. Dewey couldn't stand secrecy, he hated all the hiding we had to do. Smoke and mirrors, he called it. He used to say that some day all this would be over, that VFD would be the way it was before. A great network of knowledge, a gigantic library, open to everyone. Knowledge isn't meant to be concealed like this, Lemony. Do what you have to do. Tell the truth. Let the world know."

"But if our enemies know where it is…"

"They could destroy it, yes. But if you don't tell the story, something even worse will happen."

"What worse thing? What could be worse than losing all of this?"

"Letting it fall into decay and disuse. Letting the papers crumble and the dust pile up on the shelves." She turned to him then, looking straight into his eyes. Her hands gripped his shoulders almost tightly enough to hurt. "_Letting it be forgotten_."

"Kit, I'm _scared_." He hadn't meant to say it and it came out like a small child's plea, the voice of the little boy whisked away from his family all those years ago. He flinched inwardly at how pathetic he sounded, but Kit only sighed kindly.

"I know. So am I."

"Do you really think we'll succeed?"

"I think we _can_ succeed. I think we have a chance, and I think we have to take it, if only for all the ones who went before us. Dewey, and Jacques, and Beatrice, and all the rest of them. It may seem hopeless. I used to think it was. But we have to keep trying."

"All cannot be lost when there is still so much being found," Lemony quoted.

She smiled. "Exactly. Now come on." She stood, straightening her hair. "We've got work to do."

"I still think it's far too dangerous." Lemony stood too, picking up his briefcase.

"It is." Kit checked her list again. "But what else can we do?"


End file.
